Each week, as I think about what to share with you, I can’t help but be influenced by the people I’m spending time with and the books or articles that I’m reading. This week, literary agent Dan Balow wrote about God at Auschwitz, and I was once again reminded that even the ugliest moments must be learned lest, in forgetting them, our sinful nature would allow another monster to rise up and eradicate nearly three-quarters of a population.

I’ve been considering writing a non-fiction book exploring the question of whether we ought to be studying history – is it edifying in our Christian walk? Whenever I read someone else’s articles about Christians studying history, or a Christian’s perspective on history, my mind goes back to the possibilities of such a book. While The Stories generally seek to celebrate the history of the Appalachian people, there are certainly many eras of history that we absolutely must never allow to reoccur. The Holocaust may be at the top of the latter list.

I don’t need to recount for you the atrocities committed at Auschwitz by a deranged dictator and his followers. I can’t begin to either relate to or even understand the loss to the Jewish nation of the more than one million people who were viciously murdered at Auschwitz. And I can never imagine how God’s perfect Son could die for those SS officers, yet he did.

And that is exactly the point Mr. Balow is making in his article – God’s great love is so far beyond our human understanding that we cannot begin to understand it. We can only humbly accept His gift of love.

World War II affected everyone I know who lived in the last half of the 20th century – can you even imagine how it would have affected you if you had lived in Poland? One of the questions Mr. Balow ponders is whether the people of the little churches in the local village could smell the smoke from the crematoriums. I can’t help but wonder how they felt in the days following the camp’s liberation. If they were truly ignorant, or powerless, the reality must have been devastating. Did they blame themselves? I’m sure some did. In fact, I imagine the loss of all those precious Jewish lives haunts many Europeans even today.

As my grandparents’ generation, who lived through and fought World War II, passes away, I fear we are in danger of forgetting and failing to teach the next generation. Yet memorials like Auschwitz and Holocaust Museums stand to remind us. Let us not turn our eyes from the ugliness only to allow it to regrow unseen.